Saturday, February 28, 2015

Militants again won the elections for leadership of the
Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA), the union for ground crew of
the national flag carrier. Since 2010, PALEA has been locked in a bitter
dispute with Philippine Airlines (PAL) over outsourcing and contractualization.
After more than two years in the picketlines, PALEA settled the dispute with PAL
in November 2013.

A slate led by Gerry Rivera, incumbent PALEA president and
vice chair of Partido Manggagawa (PM), won all the top executive positions and
most of the union board officers in elections held over several days this week
at PAL offices nationwide. They won on a platform of pushing for negotiations
for a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and the full implementation of the
settlement agreement.

After handily winning the PALEA elections, the Rivera-led
leadership is extending the hand of cooperation to all groups in the union. “We
appeal to all PALEA members, including candidates for the elections, to move
forward and unite for our common interests as PAL employees. Its time to leave
partisan politics behind and respect the will of the majority as the union
faces the challenge of securing a pay hike, other benefits and job security,”
Rivera stated.

He also called on management to work with PALEA in attaining
the industrial peace needed in PAL’s corporate plans. “PALEA is more than
willing to ensure industrial peace based on respect for labor rights and decent
work, as we have formally communicated to PAL President and COO Jaime Bautista,”
Rivera explained.

After the buyback by the Lucio Tan group of PAL, PALEA wrote
the new management in December last year about reopening talks for a CBA and realizing
the reinstatement provision of the settlement agreement.

Rivera elaborated that “Wages for PAL employees have not
been increased over the past 17 years except for a few times because there have
been no new bargaining negotiations since the controversial 1998 CBA suspension.
After we took leadership of PALEA in 2010 we immediately proposed a new CBA but
talks got stalled over PAL’s insistence that it should cover only employees
that will not be outsourced. But with the resolution of the outsourcing
dispute, it is high time to put the CBA negotiations back on the agenda,
together with the reinstatement of the PALEA 600.”

PALEA 600 refers to the approximate number of members who opposed
the outsourcing plan in 2011 and were covered by the settlement agreement in
2013. Some 2,400 PAL employees were laid off in September 2011 as a result of outsourcing
but many were forced to take the separation offer over the course of the protracted
dispute.

Friday, February 13, 2015

The two-day strike at Tae Sung Philippines, a Korean-owned metal
factory at the Cavite
economic zone, ended late last night with an agreement between the union and
management for wage increases and additional benefits. Just before midnight, more
than a hundred jubilant strikers held a “victory march” from the factory to the
main gate of the export zone.

The union got a substantial pay hike which was the most
contested part of the deadlocked bargaining. Management also agreed to other
benefits demanded by the union such as additional leaves and annual Christmas package.

Since the strike broke out last Wednesday morning, marathon
mediation meetings have been held by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE)
and the National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB). Apparently
recognizing the importance of the Tae Sung dispute, no less than the national
executive director of NCMB, Reynaldo Ubaldo, together with the OIC’s of the NCMB-NCR
and NCMB-Calabarzon, and the head of the DOLE-Calabarzon, facilitated the
mediation.

“The workers of Tae Sung and even other companies in the
ecozone have learned a valuable lesson. That they will have to unionize and
fight to get a decent share in the fruits of their labor. They cannot depend on
the bankrupt two-tiered wage scheme of the government,” stated Wilson
Fortaleza, spokesperson of Partido Manggagawa (PM).

In the two-tiered wage scheme implemented in Calabarzon
since 2012, the minimum wage is replaced by a floor wage that is set low and
unchanged for five years. Increases above the floor wage will depend on
negotiated productivity-based pay.

“But at Tae
Sung, despite annual profits of more than USD 14 million, management did nothing
to share productivity gains to its workers. Thus before the strike, most Tae
Sung workers earned no more than the floor wage despite their company supplying
metal parts to big electronics and auto multinationals like American Power
Conversion, Honda, Caterpillar, Mitsubishi, Siemens and Deif of Denmark,”
argued Fortaleza.

He added that “The Tae Sung union owes its victory to the
determination of its members and to the solidarity of the labor movement in the
country and abroad. The assistance of international groups was a key factor in
putting pressure on Tae Sung’s multinational clients so that a fair resolution
of the dispute is reached.”

Thursday, February 12, 2015

The labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) today slammed the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) theme of “inclusive growth” as a myth
as it cited the strike at a Korean factory in Cavite as microcosm of labor’s plight. An
APEC senior officials meeting just concluded last weekend in Clark, Pampanga.

“APEC, which includes the Philippines
and South Korea,
is all about investor rights and none about labor concerns. Thus its call for inclusive
growth is just a marketing gimmick in the face of worsening inequality amidst
economic development. A case in point is this Korean investor in the Philippines
which refuses to share productivity gains to its struggling workers,” insisted
Wilson Fortaleza, PM spokesperson.

The strike at Tae Sung Philippines Co. Inc. in the Cavite economic zone
entered its second day. A marathon mediation meeting yesterday failed to break
the deadlock in negotiations. The union Tae Sung Employees Association asserts
that management remains intransigent in bargaining and refuses to meet workers
demands halfway. Another mediation session is scheduled this afternoon.

Fortaleza explained that “Tae Sung is earning more than USD
14 million (PhP 600 million) annually since 2011 but it is merely offering its 250
unionized workers a pittance of P3 million in wages and benefits or just half
of one percent of the fruits of their employees’ labor!”

He added that “Tae Sung is the rule not the exception among
investors in Philippine export zones and all across the industrial areas of Asia and the Pacific. Cheap labor and precarious work
means a regime of exclusion and belies APEC’s lip service of inclusive growth.”

Production at
Tae Sung remains paralyzed as regular workers are outside the factory picketing.
Aside from bad faith bargaining, the union alleges that Tae Sung is
attempting to weaken the union by firing eight union members, including one
union officer, and suspending others including the union president and vice
president. Workers have set up tents and a picketline outside the Tae Sung
factory.

“Most of the Tae Sung workers earn just the floor wage of
P315 plus allowance of P25.50 which is not even half of the cost of living in
Calabarzon, which hardly differs from Metro Manila which we estimate is at least
P1,000 per day for a family of five,” Fortaleza argued.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

A strike broke out today at a Korean-owned metal factory
inside the Cavite Economic Zone, the biggest in the country, due to a dispute
over wage increases during collective bargaining negotiations. The militant
Partido Manggagawa (PM) explained that the dispute exposes the bankruptcy of
the two-tiered wage system being implemented in Calabarzon for the past few
years.

“The two-tiered
system pioneered in Calabarzon sets a very low floor wage—the new name for the minimum
wage—and only productivity-based schemes allow workers to receive above the
floor wage. But at Tae Sung and other export zone factories, despite yearly
profits, capitalists refuse to share productivity gains to its workers. Thus
most Tae Sung workers earn no more than the floor wage despite their company supplying
metal parts to big electronics and auto multinationals like American Power
Conversion, Honda, Caterpillar, Mitsubishi, Siemens and Deif of Denmark,”
argued Wilson Fortaleza, PM national spokesperson.

Production at
Tae Sung is now paralyzed as all regular workers for the 6:00 a.m. morning
shift are now picketing company gates. Tae
Sung's human resource manager has talked to the picketing workers and she was
told that only a collective bargaining agreement will make them go back to work.

Fortaleza added that “How can a
two-tiered wage system work—in which productivity-based pay are dependent on
negotiations—when the vast majority of workers are unorganized and the few
unionized are disadvantaged by weak enforcement of labor laws and the willing connivance
of government officials—from the Labor Department to the local government units—with
foreign and local capitalists? No wonder inclusive growth remains elusive and instead
inequalities prosper despite the much-vaunted economic growth that is
monopolized by big capitalists.”

The
Tae Sung Employees Association, the union at the Korean factory, alleges that
the company has been engaged in bad faith bargaining for the past seven months
of negotiations. The union has reduced its wage demand from P100 each year for
three years to P25 in a bid to reach an agreement but the Tae Sung management
has barely moved from insisting on no increases to offering merely P5 each year
for three years. Aside from wages, almost all provisions in the union contract proposal
have been rejected by Tae Sung. Since 2011, Tae Sung has been earning annually more
than USD 10 million, according to the union.

Aside from being hardline in negotiations, the union claims
that Tae Sung is attempting to weaken the union by firing eight union members,
including one union officer, and suspending others including the union
president and vice president.

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Our Vision

Our dream is a world that gives due importance to the role of the working class and respects the dignity of labor. A social order where the working men and women of the world live together in peace, harmony and progress.Our aspirations lie in the emancipation of labor. A government that is truly of the workers, by the workers and for the workers.

Our hopes rest in a future where social progress thrives not for the benefit of a few people but for the development and richness of the entire humankind. A society that is free from the chains of wage slavery and where oppression does not exist.

Our Mission

Forge the unity of the workers into an independent working class party to organize them as a potent political force in social transformation towards the advancement and protection of labor from the scourge of globalization, establishment of a genuine workers’ government and the emancipation of the working class from capitalist exploitation and wage slavery.

Workers Unite!

The working class is the most important class in society. But, labor will only be a force to reckon with at a time when labor assumes the responsibility of leading the struggle to a decent living - free from exploitation of the propertied elite.

The time has come to rally every underprivileged sector of the society, to take the bull by the head and confront the issues of today. The working class must take an active role in every political exercise presented. The backbone of the independent party must be comprised of the working class with the other marginalized sectors in solidarity.

We must organize politically.

This is our own challenge and we must vow not to shirk from it.

Our future is in our hands, in our unity, in our struggle, in our party.